WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (All times EDT):
Updated 12:40 p.m.: Donald Trump’s campaign is painting Hillary Clinton as a proponent of the status quo as she prepares to deliver an economic speech in Michigan.
Trump’s Deputy National Policy Director Dan Kowalski says in a statement that: “right now, the American economy is only working for the rigged system in Washington and on Wall Street, yet Hillary Clinton is running to keep things as they are.”
He says Clinton’s plans will damage the economy by raising taxes, increasing spending and killing jobs.
Trump discussed his own economic plans in a speech this week that focused on cutting corporate taxes and eliminating federal regulations.
Clinton has proposed a surtax on the highest-earning Americans, while Trump has proposed a tax reduction that he acknowledges would add substantially to the debt.
Kaine portrays voting as a ‘sacred act’
Updated 12:35 p.m.: Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine says voting is a “sacred act.”
Kaine is in New Orleans addressing the Progressive National Baptist Convention, a group of African-American Baptist churches born out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
He’s talking about his religious upbringing, including the year he spent in Honduras. He says when he came back from Honduras — at that time a dictatorship — he had a new attitude about the importance of voting.
Kaine says he meets people every day who say their vote doesn’t matter. But he stressed how important it is.
His comments come as many in the African-American community are worried about the effects of a Supreme Court decision that invalidated a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Donald Trump says debt can help rebuild military
Updated 9:05 a.m.: Republican Donald Trump says the U.S. government should take on more debt to strengthen the military and rebuild infrastructure.
Trump’s comments Thursday in a CNBC interview go against the traditional Republican aversion to government borrowing.
Trump said, “I like to reduce debt too, as much as anybody.” But he added that the military has been depleted and America’s infrastructure is in horrible condition.
He said interest rates are low now and will eventually go up, making it too expensive to borrow.
Trump said: “You’d be paying so little interest right now. This is the time to borrow.”
Trump blames Obama for policies that led to ISIS creation
Updated 8:50 a.m.: Donald Trump is defending his decision to label President Barack Obama the “founder” of the Islamic State group.
Asked in an interview with CNBC Thursday whether it was appropriate for him to call the sitting president of the United States the founder of a terrorist organization that wants to kill Americans, Trump doubled down on his accusation.
“He was the founder of ISIS, absolutely,” says Trump, blaming the president for his decision to withdraw troops, which some argue created a power vacuum in which extremist groups like IS thrive.
Trump says the U.S. “should have never gotten in” the war, but also shouldn’t “have got out the way he got out.”
Trump now claims that he was opposed to the Iraq War from the beginning, despite evidence to the contrary.
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